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Fireworks shows on Independence Day are an American tradition and a fixture at ballparks across the country. On the Fourth of July 1972, a fireworks show between games of a Chicago Cubs-Atlanta Braves doubleheader might have cost the Cubs a victory and allowed the Braves to escape with a tie. Leo Durocher’s Cubs entered the […]

The Philadelphia Phillies planned to open the 1970 season at the new Veterans Stadium in South Philadelphia but site delays forced the club to open its home schedule at the oldest ballpark in the major leagues, 61-year-old Connie Mack Stadium, on April 6, 1970. A crowd of 15,918 attended the home opener between the Phillies […]

Heading into the 1993 season, the July 2 game between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres at Veterans Stadium seemed like an unexciting item. The Phillies had finished last in the National League East Division in 1992, 26 games out; the Padres were third in the NL West, 16 games out. The Phillies promotions […]

“Tonight we must say goodbye. So long old friend. We will miss you.”1 With his voice breaking, legendary radio announcer Ernie Harwell uttered those somber words to mark the end of a storied era on Monday, September 27, 1999, as the Detroit Tigers played their final game at Tiger Stadium, the venerable 87-year-old ballpark at […]

Buried midway down the front page in most of the country’s sports sections was the fact that Chicago right fielder Billy Williams hit for the cycle, propelling the Cubs to a 7-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a Sunday doubleheader. The bigger news of the day involved Jim Ryun, […]

Outfielder Steve Salvato never played a day in the major leagues, but he once got three hits in a regular-season game at a big-league ballpark. Same thing with pitcher Henry Bunnell: He never appeared in the majors, but he once earned a win in a big-league park. These unusual events happened in June 1972, when […]

In football they talk about “statement” games, when Team A thrashes Team B, thus sending a message to the opponent and the world that Team A is damn good and don’t you forget it. There are too many games in a baseball season to pinpoint one match as a “statement” game. But the Montreal Expos […]

Few dates in Pittsburgh’s baseball history were anticipated as enthusiastically as April 9, 2001, when the Pirates opened PNC Park by hosting the Cincinnati Reds. But sad news preceded the celebration: Hall of Famer Willie Stargell, one of the franchise’s signature stars, died that morning at age 61. In the afternoon the biggest bat belonged […]

As the Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins prepared to square off at Metropolitan Stadium on Sunday, June 20, 1976, neither team had particularly distinguished itself to that point in the season. The Tigers, at 26-33, were at least so far staying out of the American League East basement, where they had finished every year […]

On June 11, 1985, at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, the Phillies pounded the visiting New York Mets, 26-7, before 22,591 fans in a game lasting 3 hours and 21 minutes. The final result was two runs short of the National League record for the most runs scored by a team in a game. The 43 runs […]

Larry Bowa and Joe Hoerner crossed paths for the first time as teammates on the 1970 Philadelphia Phillies. Bowa, signed and developed by the Phillies’ organization, was a 24-year-old rookie shortstop batting leadoff for a mainly veteran team. Hoerner, a 33-year-old lefty reliever, was acquired in an offseason trade with the St. Louis Cardinals to […]

Between 1901 and 2000, there were 165 major leaguers who both struck out four times in a game and hit three home runs in a game.1 None did both in the same game, but on July 9, 2000, Tyler Houston of the Milwaukee Brewers became the first to hit those marks in back-to-back games.2 Yet […]

Houston was awarded a National League expansion franchise as a result of lengthy lobbying by Houston business leaders. Three in particular, George Kirksey, William Kirkland, and Craig Cullinan, had formed the Houston Sports Association in 1957, and attracted other businessmen willing to invest in a team. Later, in 1959, Judge Roy Hofheinz, then the Mayor […]

Luke Easter was a phenomenon. His imposing stature (6-feet-4) and friendly disposition may have led some folks to label him as a gentle giant, but there was nothing gentle about the tremendous clouts Easter belted around ballparks coast to coast in a career that began with Black independent clubs in the late 1930s and ended […]

The Los Angeles Dodgers (50-29), in second place a half-game behind the San Francisco Giants, were eager to host the last-place New York Mets at Dodger Stadium. The Mets, in their inaugural season, had won just 20 games and lost 52. The last time the Dodgers’ starting pitcher, Sandy Koufax, faced the Mets was Memorial […]

Frank Robinson wasn’t used to seeing Olympic Stadium so full. He looked up at the structure’s Teflon sky and told himself, “Hey, there’s fans in the upper deck!”1 Indeed, throughout Robinson’s three years as manager of the Montreal Expos, big crowds had been rare. Yet to many of the 31,395 spectators, some who recalled the […]

Depending on who you listened to, the New York Yankees were either shell-shocked or coolly determined as they approached the third game of the 1963 World Series. The venue had shifted across the continent to Los Angeles, but the pall of the Yankees’ losses to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first two games of […]

From 1926 through 1976, a wooden stadium stood at the corner of King and Isenberg Streets in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was small, with capacity of only about 25,000.1 It lacked infrastructure. It was called “The Termite Palace” for its infestation. Yet, like so many ballparks of past eras, it had a simple charm. “The first […]

Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, home of the Orioles from 1954 to 1991 (DAVID STINSON)   Memorial Stadium was located at 900 East 33rd Street in Baltimore, a mile northeast of Oriole Parks (I)-(V).1 Memorial Stadium was the home of the American League Baltimore Orioles from 1954 to 1991, and the National Football League Baltimore Colts […]

“Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral,” wrote George Vecsey of the New York Times after the last major-league baseball game was played there on September 28, 2008.1 Even so, for many it inspired love and loyalty that its handsome but dull replacement, Citi Field, could not. When New York City Mayor Robert F. […]

Editor’s note: This article was selected as a winner of the 2014 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.   The Montreal Expos played 36 seasons (1969-2004). For the last 28, their home was Olympic Stadium – a cavernous concrete edifice built for the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. From the outset, “The Big O” was notorious: hailed as […]

Few multi-purpose stadiums in North American history can rival Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium for the number, variety and stature of events held there. Set in a vast fairgrounds complex on the shore of Lake Ontario, the municipal facility originally known as Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) Stadium served as the largest sports and entertainment venue in Canada’s […]

In 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates rookie catcher Steve Nicosia watched the 6’1”, 220 lb. right-handed power hitter crowd the batter’s box and wondered, “How are we ever going to get a pitch by him?”1 Nicosia was hardly alone in these thoughts. For much of his 15-year major-league career Greg Luzinski – whose large bat appeared toothpick-like […]

Bob Cerv survived kamikaze attacks in World War II and put all 10 of his children through college. In between, he was a three-time New York Yankee. The Yankees signed him, traded him, brought him back, let him go, and brought him back again. His claim to Yankee fame came in 1961, when he shared […]